


Gloomy Sunday

by TheEmpressAR



Category: Bates Motel (2013)
Genre: Character Death, Depression, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-25
Updated: 2017-02-25
Packaged: 2018-09-26 19:37:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9919118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheEmpressAR/pseuds/TheEmpressAR
Summary: This sad little tale hit me around 10 pm.  When all my best EMPspiration finds me.  This is a culmination of what has led up to Norma's demise and how Norman is dealing with it in his own way.I am trying to go for the feels here and I hope I have done that...if only just a little.  I feel soo sorry for Norman right now.  He is trapped in a hell of his own making.Song for the story:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjWMtQcNJXI





	

**Author's Note:**

> All quotes and song lyrics borrowed from the creators. I take no credit for anything not my own. I just needed some bits to weave my sorrowful story. 
> 
> Bates Motel Season 5 is starting out AMAZING!!! They need OSCARS for their performances...SKIP the Emmys!!
> 
> Let me know what you think in the comments below....I'm going to miss this show when it's gone but HOPEFULLY they fulfill all of our needs until we get there!!

_Sunday is gloomy_  
_My hours are slumberless_  
_Dearest the shadows_  
_I live with are numberless_  
_Little white flowers_  
_Will never awaken you_  
_Not where the black coach_  
_Of sorrow has taken you..._

  
_"Mother..." Norman mouthed her name and looked beside him. She was there. In the shadows. The moonlight illuminating her translucent skin. Bitter wailing and sobbing filled the air around him. He couldn't move. He could barely breathe. He saw her lifted above him. Floating...Lifeless._

  
He comes to reality slowly. As always. The same way he has done every day. Day after day in the endless hell that he creates for himself. He looks beside him. Her side of the bed is empty. The sheets are rumpled and messy. He reaches his hand out to feel the indention her body had left in the mattress. It was faint, but he tries his best to preserve it by never changing the sheets or sleeping on her side. He looks at her clothes, tossed around the room as if at any moment she would be in there to pick them up or pick out her outfit choice of the day. He looks up. He counts the few water spots that have grown in patches of the worn ceiling letting him know there is a leak in the roof. More than one leak. He doesn't care. He takes in the rest of his mother's room where he has been sleeping these last few long, lonely years since she left him. A tear slides down his cheek. How he wishes he could stop the tears from flowing.

  
Oh, he knows she is around. He can feel her nearby. Her memory, close around the edges of his mind. But...it is in times like these...when it is quiet. When it is the darkness before the dawn...he knows she has left him and is never coming back.

  
He closes his eyes. He doesn't know if hours pass or days. They all meld into one long endless fog. He can never see past the next minute. The next breath.

  
Something is licking his face and whimpering. He opens his eyes and with a smile ruffling the little brown dog's head that has come to greet him good morning.

  
"Hello, Juno!"

  
With Juno's arrival, he knows someone else will not be far behind. He tries to remember what had made him melancholy before. He shakes his head. It doesn't matter. She is here now. He stretches and smiles again. He can smell the bacon wafting up from downstairs. He is hungry. But more and more, like every other day, he is just anxious to be with her. He looks around the neat and tidy room. _"A place for everything and everything in its place."_ He says with a matter-of-fact tone. He happily kicks his legs over the side of the bed and makes his way to the bathroom.

  
Wisps of her hair. The curve of her calf, visible underneath her skirt. The small of her back. Her smell. Her perfume. Here and then not. There and back again. She came and she went. He approaches her in the kitchen as she ties the big green bow of her apron behind her. He loves to look at her. His heart skips more than one beat when she smiles back at him.

  
_"But you do understand that she's dead...right?"_

  
_Hesitant steps inside a fluorescent-lit room. He could see her just behind the girl that was making her up. Like she was preparing herself for his arrival. Her prince...coming to awaken her with a kiss. He was afraid. He didn't understand what game they were supposed to be playing now. All he wanted was his mother back. The way they were before. They could go to Hawaii and leave all of this sadness and misery behind. He fulfilled his part. Why was she doing this to him? He approached her. Lifeless. Cold on the slab. He wanted to touch her. To bring warmth back to her pale skin. A tear in his eye as he eased his way slowly to her ear. He looked for signs of life. He stroked her hair._ "Mother...Mother....I wish you would have just told me the plan."

  
_Angels have no thoughts_  
_Of ever returning you_  
_Would they be angry_  
_If I thought of joining you..._

  
_"My mother was the most wonderful person who ever lived. She was just beautiful beyond words, radiant half-queen half little girl. She had an innocence to her that illuminated she ever did everything that she touched every word that she said. She was like a miracle. And I miss her...I miss...I miss I miss her so terribly I can't believe she left...she was not supposed to leave me..."_

  
"I wish I could go down to the village with you sometime." She says to him at the door. He has just eaten a huge breakfast. She always makes him so much good food to eat. Juno is at his side begging for bites of bacon as he contentedly scruffs her head. He helps her clean up afterward, as he always does. Putting the dishes away and sweeping up any stray bits of food from the floor, he watches her as she makes the dishes sparkling in the sink. Humming a happy tune, she cleans her kitchen spotless and he never feels more at peace, more whole, more himself in these moments. He slides his hands down her arms to grasp her hands and look her in the eyes. "I know mother, but we discussed how dangerous it may be. It's better if you stay here."

  
He hates to leave her. He looks after her more than she thinks she looks after him. After their near-death experiences of the past, he knows he needs to keep a much better eye on her and never let her leave him again. He knows that she feels the same about him. All they have are each other to look after. The others have left them and Norman is more than pleased to have his mother to himself. He knows it is necessary at times to do things to keep himself alive and healthy and run the business for them both so he has to leave her alone and take care of things. She is his mother, he knows she can handle things on her own. She always does. With a kiss on her forehead and a caress of her cheek he turns and walks through the doors.

The room grows dark behind him as he leaves. Her shadow disappears from view.

  
_Gloomy is Sunday..._

  
_He dug her up. He remembered doing that. He couldn't leave her there, in the ground. How could she breathe being left down there? It was humanly impossible. He knew he had to rescue her before it was too late. She would not forgive him if he let her die...alone...and cold....lifeless._

  
_"Mother...oh Mother....." He kissed her desperately. "I didn't mean to leave you here....I just wasn't sure what I was supposed to do."_

  
_"Come on Mother....let's take you home."_

  
_With shadows I spend it all_  
_My heart and I_  
_Have decided to end it all_

  
_"Open your eyes...Open your eyes now mother...it's safe...I won't let no one hurt you...so just open your eyes.....Look at me mother....Mother Look at me....I'm right here....look at me! Look at me now!"_

  
He often feels trapped under the weight of her love for him. Her protection. He thinks of this on the times he is able to break away from the house. It is also here that he comes back to a sort of sense of being tumbled back down to earth. His house is a million light years away on some distant planet with his Queen ready to tend to his every need. He feels smothered by it. He wants a taste of freedom. But every chance he can get, he sees her face...hears her voice.....feels her body pulling him back in and controlling his every thought word and gesture under the guise of that same love and protection. He can't escape her. Does he even want to? _"All I need is the air that I breathe and to love you."_

  
_Soon there'll be candles_  
_And prayers that are said I know_  
_Let them not weep_  
_Let them know that I'm glad to go_

  
_"Mother.......MOTHER....!!"_

  
_"Mother I have really had enough of this...if you are angry and are punishing me you win...I'm sorry would you just please come back. You can't just leave me here...you can't just leave me here alone in this abyss where I can't find you...."_

  
_Death is no dream_  
_For in death I'm caressin' you_  
_With the last breath of my soul_  
_I'll be blessin' you_

  
_He remembered running to her bedroom. Desperate. Hopeless. Lost. The realization of everything a cold hard slap across his face. She was not coming back. She was never going to be with him again and it was the worst feeling in all of the universe. To know that...finally...._

  
_He remembered shakily loading the gun. His breath coming in short, sharp gasps. He had to remain in control. To do this one thing right. To be with her. This was the only way. He didn't want to live in a world where he couldn't see the light in her eyes, the sunshine in her smile and the kindness in her touch. He wanted to hold her, just one last time. He loved her tragically._

 _Dreaming, I was only dreaming_  
_I wake and I find you asleep_  
_In the deep of my heart here..._

  
_Sunshine through the leaves. His mother's face laughing down at him. He is dizzy with love and happiness as he gazes back up at her. Spinning in the meadows. Running through the fields. Hide and seek behind the old oak tree. Some of his earliest memories. Baking cookies. Playing on the piano. Her....always her. Smiling and laughing love in her eyes. Only for him._

  
The strains of _'I'll be home for Christmas'_...playing softly in the background.

  
_"You're here. You did come back...I thought you left me."_

  
_Darling I hope_  
_That my dream never haunted you_  
_My heart is tellin' you_  
_How much I wanted you_.

  
_“Mother, do you ever have the feeling that you’ve had the same nightmare over and over again? But that you can’t remember it, you just remember the feeling of it?”_

  
He walks down the basement stairs. He is slow...methodical....he is asleep, yet he is awake. He doesn't know where he is, who he is or why he is. He just knows...he is. He opens the door to the room that he has converted into a deep freezer. It has taken some time to get the logistics right but once it was finished, it was just perfect to preserve things....things like sides of beef....or _other_ things. He quirks a sly smile. He approaches her silently and watches as his breath exhales in hot puffs of air that freeze around him. He falls to his knees before her and places his head in her lap. She is stiff and hard and solid. There is no soft warmth or give to her body. She will not comfort. She cannot comfort. She is lifeless. A tear slides down his cheek.

  
_'Sleep...perchance to dream.'_ "What dream am I in Mother?"


End file.
